From "Astoria" to "The Humans" with a whole lot in between, a month-by-month stroll with ArtsWatch through the year in Oregon theater

From Portland Center Stage’s Astoria: Part I (Part II is streaming around the bend in January, along with an encore run for Part I) to Artists Rep’s The Humans and a slew of holiday shows, it’s been a busy, busy year in Oregon theater.

In Ashland, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival rolled out another season blending contemporary and classic with a wide-angle world view. And the fine actor G. Valmont Thomas, after spending a season playing Falstaff in all three plays in which the great character appears, died in December from bone cancer, at age 58.

In Hillsboro, Bag&Baggage, which had been temporarily homeless, opened a spiffy new home in a renovated downtown former bank building.

In Portland, the sprawling Fertile Ground festival introduced dozens of new works (and, like Astoria, is gearing up for a fresh new run in January). Chris Coleman, Center Stage’s artistic director for 17 years, announced he would be leaving at the end of this season to take over the theater at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. TCG, the influential Theatre Communications Group, held its annual conference in Portland. And theater companies large and small produced more plays than The Count could count in a dozen seasons of Sesame Street.

Portland chorus channels joy in singing into artistic growth

Portland’s Bach Cantata Choir has grown in artistic excellence in the past several years. The sonic values are fresh and vibrant. This choir has a wide age range, fine choral singers all. Many have labored in the choral trenches for several decades and are joined by a healthy number of those beginning their choral careers. So how do they maintain a composite and youngish sound? Good coaching, perhaps something more ephemeral.

Friday night’s concert offered more evidence of BCC’s growth and clues to its success. Under the leadership of founder Ralph Nelson, the singers and orchestra were fervent and compelling in the main work of the evening, the first three cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio presented at Rose City Park Presbyterian Church to an overflow crowd.

Bach Cantata Choir sang music from their namesake’s ‘Christmas Cantata’ and more.

Leading the way, but not as imposing as Bach, were two shorter works: Dieterich Buxtehude’s (1637-1707) “In Dulci Jublilo” (With sweet rejoicing), and “In Nativitatem Domini Canticum” (Song of the Lord’s Birth) by French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704). Both were conducted by the choir’s assistant conductor, Emma Mildred Riggle.

Within BCC choral ranks, Mr. Nelson finds soloists who can fill the bill of quality performance. Charpentier’s quite charming InNativitatem, one of his Latin motets for sacred services exhibiting both French and Italian baroque styles, was convincingly enhanced by four soloists: soprano Josephine Petersen, alto Megan Mattoon, tenor David Foley and bass John Vergin all showed off fine musicianship and vocal training.

Ms. Riggle masterfully enlivened this motet with well chosen tempi and strong leadership. This was a delicate, lyrical counterpoint to the other works on the program. Riggle is on a positive arc as conductor and leader, displaying clarity and authority, demonstrated particularly in the Charpentier.

ArtsWatch chronicles a year that showcased women's music, natural inspirations, and institutional evolution

Oregon music is surging, and this year, Oregon ArtsWatch has been your personal surfboard to keep you on top of the tide instead of inundated by it. And to bring you views of the powerful creative forces beneath the waves. This roundup is in no way a comprehensive or even representative sample of the dozens and dozens of music-related previews, reviews, features, interviews, profiles, and more we presented in 2017. Instead, we’ve chosen mostly stories whose value transcends a particular concert, leaned toward Oregon rather than national artists (who can get plenty of press elsewhere), favored music by today’s American composers instead of long-dead Europeans, and tried to represent a variety of voices and approaches. We hope this roundup gives a valuable snapshot of an eventful, fruitful moment in Oregon’s musical culture.

Homegrown Sounds

Although we also write about jazz and other improvised music and other hard-to-classify sounds, ArtsWatch’s primary musical focus has always been contemporary “classical” (a term we’d love to replace with something more accurate) composition by Oregon composers, and this year presented a richer tapestry than ever. As always, Cascadia Composers led the way in presenting new Oregon music in the classical tradition, but others including FearNoMusic, Third Angle New Music, the University of Oregon and even new entities like Burn After Listening also shared homegrown sounds. ArtsWatch readers learned about those shows and composers from accomplished veterans like Kenji Bunch to emerging voices such as Justin Ralls.

This year the arts fought back by finding space for everyone and creating spiky work that reminded us where we are

We live in the best of times—at least measured by the profusion of visual arts in Portland and the state. The number of artists and the places they have found and created have both continued to grow. The thin infrastructure of existing institutions and galleries hasn’t been able to keep up, and so 2017 found us in the middle of a boomlet of new alternative organizations, cooperatives, groups and galleries. Many of these had a social and/or political bent to them, which makes perfect sense in this year of political tumult. The best form of resistance, both to the short-term national political condition and to the long-term drift away from democracy, is to develop new ways and platforms to share art-making, which itself can be a call to reflection and an appeal to shared experience and values. We will get out of this together, and when we do, we want to bring everyone with us.

As I wandered through the ArtsWatch visual arts stories of 2017, I was struck by two things. The first was that our resources were entirely insufficient to keep up with all that was going on. The second? The stories that our arts writers—all freelancers—created in response to what they encountered still managed to sketch an outline, an abstract, of what was going on. Hannah Krafcik, Paul Maziar and Nim Wunnan wrote about new galleries, new organizations and new artists showing in alternative locations. Paul Sutinen produced a series of interviews with some of our most decorated artists. Bob Hicks wrote compelling stories about the Portland Art Museum’s programming and the reimagining of the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education in its new Pearl District digs. And we had several one-shot reports—about an artist collective in Cuba, art made from the detritus washed ashore in Bandon, Oregon, and the back-and-forth between a model-photographer and the painter recreating her on canvas.

If you scroll through our visual arts category, you can find these and lots of other posts, most of them longer-form, all of them committed to grappling with art, artists and the culture in which they operate. The list that follows isn’t my peculiar assessment of the “best” visual arts stories of 2017. It just illustrates what I’ve been talking about, in one way or another.

From ballet to world to contemporary, where the dance scene led, ArtsWatch followed. In 20 stories, a brisk stroll through the seasons.

Dance in Portland and Oregon has long been on the edge – often financially and sometimes artistically. Yet despite economic challenges you can’t keep it down: the city moves to a dance beat, and every week brings fresh performances. ArtsWatch writers got to a significant share of those shows in 2017, and wrote about them with breadth, wit, and insight.

The twenty ArtsWatch stories here don’t make up a “best of” list, though several of these shows could easily make one. They constitute, rather, a January-to-December snapshot of a rich and busy scene that runs from classical ballet to contemporary and experimental work.

We’re able to bring smart coverage to dance and other disciplines because of support from you and people like you. Oregon ArtsWatch is a nonprofit cultural journalism organization, and your gifts help pay for the stories we produce. It’s easy to become a member and make a donation. Just click on the “donate today” button below:

A dance down memory lane in 20 tales from ArtsWatch writers:

Jan. 20: “Going to opening night of BodyVox’s Urban Meadow at Lincoln Performance Hall on Thursday evening was a little like dropping over for dinner with a bunch of old friends you haven’t seen in a while, and remembering why you liked them in the first place,” Bob Hicks wrote. “The table was set nicely, the food and wine were good, and everybody swapped old jokes and stories with easy familiarity. There was even a guest of honor, who was fondly feted, and who told a few good tales himself.” The “guest” was the wonderful dancer Erik Skinner, who was retiring from BodyVox (though not from performing) after this run, and the program included a bunch of old favorites that were themselves welcome guests.

How to support the arts and thumb your nose at the new tax bill

Today’s subject is the contradiction between Oregon’s obvious love for the arts, and our tepid support for them at the state level. Well, actually the subject is how you and I, dear reader, can help solve that contradiction.

It’s especially important this year, given the tax bill that was signed into law last week. That bill will eventually double the standard deduction that most Americans take, and that will make it less likely that we will itemize. You know where I’m going with this: Unless you itemize, you don’t have the tax incentive to give to charities. And the only taxpayers who will now itemize, especially now that the deduction for state income taxes and property taxes have been limited, are very high-income earners. “The biggest change is expected to be among households earning $75,000 to $200,000 a year — a bracket in which more than half of filers itemized their taxes under the old code,” according to a Washington Post analysis.

The bottom line: If you itemize now, but probably won’t itemize in 2018, then this is the last year to take a charitable deduction of any kind. You can keep giving—no one expects private philanthropy to dry up completely—but your tax incentive will disappear. And an Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy study, cited by the Post, is predicting a 4.5 percent drop in giving in 2018, which would be about $13 billion.

Albert Robida, “A night at the opera in the year 2000,” cartoon, 1882

Most arts organizations in Oregon are nonprofits, and they depend on philanthropy for their existence (either direct giving or through foundations), along with ticket sales and government support. This solution to the problem of supporting the arts starts with the Oregon Cultural Trust, and then, for this year at least, involves a change in giving patterns by individuals. Stick with me: We can do this!

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Just for an update, the glorious State of Oregon ranks 35th in funding for the arts through its arts agencies, the Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Cultural Trust. That’s a little weird. The state always ranks near the very top in attendance at its arts events. You would think, all things being equal, that we’d be happier to support the arts than most other places.

That’s not the case. I’m going to focus on the states that start with the letter O for a moment, a universe of three states. According to the complex calculations of the National Association of State Arts Agencies, Oregon state government spends a grand total of 84 cents per state resident on the arts. Let that sink in a moment. Eighty-four cents. A grand total of $3,422,588.

Now, I hear people complain about government support for the arts a lot, but complaining about 84 cents is complaining about nickels and dimes. Actual nickels and dimes. And pennies. Even if you’re ideologically opposed to giving to the arts (and I’m sure those folks have clicked away from this story already), there are much bigger targets around for your slings and arrows. (For the record, I think the same thing about people who complain about the arts tax in Portland. That $35 is going directly toward something we actually voted for—arts education at the primary school level and support for our non-profit arts organizations. But that’s another story.)

Back to the O states. The other two are Ohio and Oklahoma. Ohio is a much bigger state, and during the 20th century, it was one of the nation’s richest, home to very large national corporations, from Procter & Gamble and Kroger in Cincinnati to Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in Akron. It’s still an industrial center of major national importance, but its per capita income has slipped below Oregon’s. We’re 26th nationally, at $54,148 per household. They are 34th, at $51,075. Still, they are ahead of us in state funding for the arts: They spend $1.39 per capita, and a total of $16,173,750.

Oklahoma is more our size, and for much of its history, its wealth was built on an extractive industry, just like ours—oil in their case, timber in ours. The average household income in Oklahoma is $48,568, which ranks 39th nationally. So, they give less of their state budget to the arts than we do, surely? Uh, no. It’s close, but they contribute 99 cents per capita to their state arts agencies, which ranks 26th nationally. Among the O states, Oregon is last.

Some might say this is a brilliant economy of resources— we invest little and get a lot. Unfortunately for us, among the O states Oregon is most dependent on its creative economy—the design, tech, new knowledge companies that drive our economy now. And the arts are crucial for attracting the talent that sharpens the edge of those companies and for keeping them engaged with their creative side when they get here. We can’t afford to be pennywise and pound foolish.

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Fortunately, the Oregon Cultural Trust allows us to rectify an ongoing error of the state legislature—in this case its reluctance to fund the arts sufficiently. The beauty of it is, it doesn’t cost us any money. And though it’s been around for awhile now, many of us don’t take advantage of its unique provisions. Many do: Oregonians invested more than $4.55 million in the Oregon Cultural Trust in 2016, after all. For good reason: It distributes money to every corner of the state, and funds tribal and historical organizations as well. So, if you’re taking advantage already, this is just a refresher.

The process isn’t hard, but it does involve a few steps. And the subject of taxes makes my head swim, my eyes blurry and my knees weak. That’s why I’m sure that if I can do it, so can you.

It starts with a gift to one or more of the 1,400 or so arts and cultural groups in the state. You can find the list of qualifying groups on the Trust’s website, though nearly anyone you can think of qualifies.

Make a matching gift to the Cultural Trust. You can do it online. You will be provided with a confirmation screen you can print for your records to claim your tax credit. Or you can donate by telephone (503-986-0088).

Claim your entire contribution to the Trust as a tax credit on your Oregon income tax—up to $500 for an individual, $1,000 for couples filing jointly, and $2,500 for corporations. Much of that money will be distributed to Oregon arts groups directly, and some will go to the Trust’s permanent fund.

Let’s compress that: You gift your favorite arts group(s), you give to the Cultural Trust, you take a tax credit for the gift to the Trust (and to the arts groups), you enjoy great art the rest of the year.

Not so hard, is it? Ohio and Oklahoma, we’re coming for you!

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OK, one more idea. Take a look at Step One: The original gifts to arts organizations. Although the limit on the Oregon Cultural Trust tax credit is $500 for individuals and $1,000 for couples filing jointly, you can still take the federal income tax deduction on any larger amount. At least you can take it THIS year, if you itemize. But let’s imagine next year. It’s entirely possible that you won’t be itemizing on your 2018 tax return, which means you won’t get a deduction for your charitable contributions (to arts groups or anyone else). Bummer.

That’s why it’s a good idea to give the money you WOULD have given in 2018 now, in 2017, so you can take the tax deduction now. Instead of giving Oregon ArtsWatch $100 this year—just an example!—you could give us $200, and take the full tax deduction this year. We would be much obliged to help in this way. And it would work the same way for any charitable contribution: This is the year to double up and guarantee that you get the deduction.

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So, right, this column is self-serving. Oregon ArtsWatch is one of the organizations on the Oregon Cultural Trust’s list. You can donate to us, then donate to the trust and get the money you gave to the trust back in the form of a tax credit.

Why would you do that? Because we believe that a healthy, active, adaptive culture, something we all need, requires a healthy, active, adaptive and independent source for culture news, analysis and commentary. We’ve been talking about that this week on the site: The stories we’ve written that have had a big impact, the stories that our new writers have written, the in-depth stories that introduce you to important artists in the community, the reviews from informed writers we post. As other sources for the news, feature stories and interpretation of the arts dry up, we believe that our contribution becomes more and more important.

We hope you think the same way! And if you do, it’s very easy to get started. Thanks for considering us!

From a Lewis Carroll lark to a rambling Road Dog to a play about a baby to art out of ocean garbage, twelve ArtsWatch stories not to miss

A dance critic walks into an art show. A man and his dog travel the byroads of America. A pop song sinks into a writer’s soul. A jazz pianist walks into the wilderness. A play about a baby strikes a theater reviewer close to home. On the southern Oregon coast, artists make huge sculptures from the detritus that chokes the sea.

We run a lot of stories on a lot of subjects at Oregon ArtsWatch – more than 500 in 2017 alone – and a few stand out simply as stories that want to be told. Put together a good writer and a good subject and chances are you’ll get a memorable tale. Here are a dozen such stories from 2017.

We’re able to tell the stories we tell because of support from you and people like you. Oregon ArtsWatch is a nonprofit cultural journalism organization, and your gifts help pay for the stories we produce. It’s easy to become a member and make a donation. Just click on the “donate today” button below:

A look back at a dozen stories from 2017 you won’t want to miss:

Jan. 31: “What do you do with your existential frustration? If you boil it down into its purest form, you get either despair or rage—which then has to be dealt with. But if you chill it out and mix in some humor, you end up with absurdity. And that can be played with! O Frabjous Day!” A.L. Adams got down in the existential trenches with Shaking the Tree’s We’re All Mad Here, a piece performed and largely conceived by Matthew Kerrigan in homage to the great absurdist Lewis Carroll. “Any drug-addled dodo could dream up a different world, but that wasn’t the crux of Carroll’s vision. Like his forebears Aesop and Chaucer and Jonathan ‘Gulliver’ Swift, Carroll was a satirist as well as a fabulist.”